Cancer Essay | Essay

How Cancer Is Developed

Summary: While no cure exists for cancer, but scientists have learned a lot about it. Oncogenes are the underlying problem behind the development of cancer, whether the cause is genetic, viral, or environmental. From this knowledge and continued scientific research, a cure hopefully will be found.

Cancer

Cancer is a horrible disease to which no cure has been found and it continues to consume the lives of millions.

Cancer comes from genetic changes in the cell cycle such as a mutation of a somatic cell. Cancer can also be caused from environmental factors like chemical carcinogens, or physical mutagens like x-rays, or viruses.

The underlying problem is due to oncogenes. An oncogene is a gene found in viruses or as a part of the normal genome that triggers cancer. However, at first a gene is a proto-oncogene, which is a normal gene until influenced by an oncogene, which can happen in three ways. The first way a proto-oncogene can become an oncogene is if a proto-oncogene happens to be adjacent to an active promoter, which increases gene transcription. An active promoter may also cause an increase in gene expression once the gene or promoter...